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Louis IX
"In order to do justice and right to thy subjects, be upright and firm, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left, but always to what is just; and do thou maintain the cause of the poor until such a time as the truth is made clear." - Louis' last instructions to his son Louis IX (25 April 1214 – 25 August 1270), commonly known as Saint Louis, was a Capetian King of France who reigned from 1226 until his death. Louis was crowned in Reims at the age of 12, following the death of his father Louis VIII the Lion, although his mother, Blanche of Castile, ruled the kingdom until he reached maturity. During Louis's childhood, Blanche dealt with the opposition of rebellious vassals and put an end to the Albigensian crusade which had started 20 years earlier. Negotiations with the Assassins "There came likewise to him, ambassadors from the prince of the Bedouins, called the Old Man of the Mountain . . . asking the king if he were acquainted with their lord . . . The king said he was not; he had never seen him, although he had heard much spoken of him." - Joinville According to Matthew Paris (d. 1259), the English Benedictine Monk and historian, in 1238 the Lord of Alamut and the Abbasid Caliph had sent a joint mission to Europe to seek assistance of King Louis IX and King Henry III of England against the Mongols. But the envoys had found no sympathy for their cause at the European courts. At any rate, a most intricate series of embassies and messages were now exchanged between European powers and the Mongols, and between the latter and the Muslim rulers, in addition to the less noteworthy Christian-Muslim diplomatic encounters of the time. It was against this background that King Louis IX of France, better known as St Louis, led the Seventh Crusade (1248-54), the last major Crusader campaign, and also entered into diplomatic negotiations with the Mongols. After his early defeat in 1250 at Damietta, however, St Louis went to Acre and remained in Palestine for four years until 1254. During this period he exchanged embassies and gifts with the Old Man of the Mountain, the then local leader of the Nizari Ismailis in Syria. His ambassadors told the king that he should start paying tribute to their Chief Da'i "in the manner as the emperor of Germany, the king of Hungary, the sultan of Babylon Egypt, and many other princes, have yearly done; for they know well, that they would not be allowed to exist or reign, but during his good pleasure." The emissaries also declared, Joinville adds, that their Chief Da'i would be equally satisfied if the king were to acquit him the tribute he then paid annually to the Grand Master of the Temple, or of the Hospital. Joinville then relates how the king promised to deliver his reply in a second meeting, which was convened later on the same day in the presence of the Grand Masters of the Templars and Hospitallers; but instead of keeping his promise, the emissaries were now pressured by the Grand Masters, Reginald of Vicheir and William of Chateauneuf, into repeating their earlier request. Joinville explains that in the course of a third meeting which took place on the following day, the Grand Masters reprimanded the Nizari emissaries for having conveyed such an imprudent message to the King of France, and they enjoined the emissaries to return to their Cheif Da'i and "to come back within fifteen days with such letters from their prince that the king shall be contented with him". According to Joinville, who may have been present at some of these meetings, the Nizari envoys returned to Acre within the specified period, bringing valuable gifts from their Chief Da'i, including a crystal elephant, several amber statues and other ornaments inlaid with gold, decorative vases, a chess board, as well as a shirt and a ring. In connection with the last two items, the envoys reportedly told the king: "Sire, we have come back from out lord, who informs you that as the shirt is the part of dress nearest to the body, he sends you this, his shirt, as a gift, or a symbol that you are the king for whom he has the greatest affection, and which he is most desirous to cultivate; and, for further assurance of it, here is his ring that he sends you, which is of pure gold, and hath his name engraved on it; and with this ring our lord espouses you, and understands that henceforth you be as one of the fingers of his hand." Desiring to cultivate friendly relations with the Nizari Ismailis, St Louis responded to their peace initiative by dispatching his own gift-bearing ambassadors to the Old Man of the Mountain. These gifts included vases of gold and silver, stuffs of scarlet and silk, This Frankish mission also included an Arabic-speaking friar, Yves the Breton, who had conducted other negotiations with Muslim rulers on behalf of the French King. When the Old Man of the Mountain appeared in public, armed heralds cried "Whoever you may be, dread to appear before him who holds the life and death of kings in his hands." It was in the course of his meeting with the Assassin's Chief Da'i, held at the stronghold of Masyaf, that Yves evidently conversed with the Chief Da'i of the Assassins on "the articles of his faith". Joinville recounts interesting details of what Yves the Breton later reported to the king regarding his understanding of the doctrines preached by the Nizari Ismailis. Friar Yves reported that they: "did not believe in Mahomet, but followed the religion of Aly, who was the uncle of Mahomet, it was Aly to whom Mahomet was indebted for all the honors he enjoyed; and that when Mahomet had made his great conquests over mankind, he quarrelled with and separated from Aly, who perceiving the pride of Mahomet, and that he wished to trample upon him, began to draw as many as he could to his doctrines, and retired to part of the deserts and mountains of Egypt, where he gave them a diffrent creed from that of Mahomet. Those who support the religion of Aly call those who follow Mahomet unbelievers, as the Mahometans in like manner style the Bedouin infidels. Each party, in this respect, says the truth, for in fact they are both unbelievers." Yves had evidently found, in the living quarters of the Old Man, a short Christian treatise which contained some sayings of Jesus addressed to St Peter. Delighted at this evidence of interest in Christianity, Yves had told the Nizari chief to read that book frequently, "for, small as it may be, it contains many excellent things". The Old Man had reportedly replied that he did in fact read it frequently, adding that he held St Peter in high esteem, because "in the beginning of the world, the soul of Abel, after his brother Cain had murdered him, entered the body of Noah; and the soul of Noah, on his decease, went to the body of Abraham; and after Abraham it entered the body of St Peter, who is now under the earth." Joinville himself included some allegedly mistranslated and misunderstood information on the Assassins in his ''History of Saint Louis, ''which follows closely the account of Yves the Breton. Joinville states that "their numbers are not to be counted; for they dwell in the kingdoms of Jerusalem, Egypt, and throughout all the lands of the Saracens and infidels". It is significant that neither Joinville nor his source, Yves the Breton, who lived in the Latin East and had contracts with the Syrian Assassins and their leadership, participated in the formation of the Nizari legends. In other words, they did not fantasize about the secret practices of the Nizaris, nor did they endorse any of the then circulating versions of such legends purporting to explain the devotion of the ''fida'is ''and their attachment to their Chief Da'i. Joinville and Yves the Breton were, indeed, the only thirteenth-century occidental observers of the basis of the occult beliefs, while their contemporaries in Crusader circles and in Europe were already well embarked on their quest to rationalize the behavior of the ''fida'is ''in terms of their addiction to bodily pleasures, induced with or without intoxicating potions. Encouraged by the news of the Mongols' inclination towards Nestorian Christianity, St Louis also sought to establish an alliance with the Mongols against the Muslims. In pursuit of this objective he dispatched a Flemish Franciscan friar, William of Rubrick, on a mission to the court of the Great Khan Mongke in Mongolia. In 1254, William reached the Mongol capital Karakorum, where he participated in a great theological debate before Mongke with representatives of the Nestorian Christians, Buddhists and Muslims. William of Rubruck has left a valuable account of this debate and other events of his mission to Mongolia, in which he refers to the Persian Assassins. He also related that a large group of fida'is had entered Karakorum in 1254 under different guises for the purpose of killing Mongke, who had already sent a major expedition under the command of his brother Hulagu against the Ismaili strongholds in Persia. William is among the earliest Europeans to have referred to the Persian Nizaris as the "Assassins". To the Mongols, the Nizaris were called Mulihet. In all probability, William had heard the term "Assassins", or its variants such as "Axasins" and "Hacsasins" which appear in other manuscripts of his journey, from the Crusaders and was to some extent aware, like James of Vitry, of the ties between the Syrian and the Persian Nizaris. William used the words Assassins and Mulihet (a corruption of the Arabic mulhid or malahida) interchangeably; in addition to applying the term "Assassins" to both the entire Persian Nizari community and the group of the Assassin fida'is. Soon afterwards, the Mongols completed, in their own initiative, their conquest of western Asia, causing the destruction of the Nizari Ismaili State of Persia in 1256 and that of the Abbasid Caliphate in 1258.